woulda

English

Etymology

Eye dialect form of a reduction of would have.

Pronunciation

(US) IPA^(key): /ˈwʊdə/
Audio (UK) (file)
Rhymes: -ʊdə

Contraction

woulda

(colloquial) Contraction of would have.
You woulda told him the truth.

Usage notes

Like other similarly formed contractions, speakers only use woulda to replace the modal sense of would have, i.e. where have precedes a past participle: We woulda come if you'd called. They do not use it to replace would followed by the verb have used lexically, e.g. *We woulda a reason. (We would have a reason would be contracted to We'd have a reason instead.) See also gonna.

Derived terms

woulda, coulda, shoulda